Right wing, John Boehner in Hastert rule fight

Rep. Matt Salmon is leading the effort to force the speaker to get majority GOP support. | AP Photo

Salmon’s proposal would require 118 Republicans — out of 234 — to vote in a secret ballot to advance a spending bill to the floor. Republican leadership warns that this would slow down the legislative process to a crawl. And there are many holes in this proposal, sources say. It does not include suspension bills, so if Republicans want to bypass the Hastert rule, leadership still has options if it wants to move something. However, the two-thirds majority of the House needed to pass suspension bills would still make it difficult to pass bills without significant GOP support.

Of course, some of the same lawmakers who vote against legislation want it to pass, but they don’t want their fingerprints on it. They want to be “purists,” one GOP aide said, knowing that other Republicans and Democrats will eventually bail them out.

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“They don’t want to deal with the realities to having to govern,” groused a senior Republican staffer, speaking on condition of anonymity. “But Boehner has to act like a grown-up.”

Senior Republicans complain that Salmon’s proposal would dramatically undercut Boehner’s freedom to operate in trying to make deals on must-pass spending and debt-limit bills — legislative battles with Obama that have outsize implications for the party.

“Any time the majority takes away from their leader from their negotiator tools, it makes them weaker,” said Rep. Pat Tiberi (R-Ohio), a Boehner ally. “And that’s essentially what this would do. It would take a tool away from leaders.”

Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.), the party’s chief deputy whip, said, “there was always a corollary to the Hastert rule that was always largely unreported, and that is ‘pass everything that leadership puts on the floor.’”

Salmon — who won’t disclose who has signed on to his proposal — insists he’s not doing it because of unhappiness with Boehner or a desire to replace the speaker.

“I don’t see it as a rebuke to [Boehner] in any way. I see it as strengthening his hand,” Salmon said. “I think ultimately as he goes in to try to negotiate with Harry Reid and President Obama, it strengthens his hand to say, ‘Look, I can’t put anything out of this body without a majority of the majority.’ I think that gives him extra negotiating power.”

Boehner insisted Tuesday he would violate the Hastert rule only if there was “zero leverage” and no better political or tactical play.

“Let me be clear,” Boehner said, according to a source in the closed GOP meeting. “Immigration is not one of these scenarios. We have plenty of leverage. And I have no intention of putting a bill on the floor that will violate the principles of our majority and divide our conference.”

Democrats are watching this with glee.

“History shows that the House Republican leadership has extreme difficultly passing major legislation without Democratic votes,” Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said in a statement. “In a number of cases, including the passage of the Violence Against Women Act and aid to victims of Hurricane Sandy, action would not have been taken if House Republican leaders had adhered to the Hastert rule.”

The farm bill, which is on the floor this week, could be a test, of sorts. House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas of Oklahoma said he has the majority of Republicans already lined up to back his bill.

“No conference can tie the future conference’s hands in my opinion, but bottom line is this: If I can’t convince the majority of my colleagues in the body as a whole, and in the Republican Conference as a whole, then maybe I haven’t tried hard enough,” Lucas said.